Men, women in sync when it comes to retirement

Men and women have similar expectations and attitudes toward retirement, according to a recent Employee Benefit Research Institute survey.

The 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey found that the differences between how the sexes view retirement are negligible with a few notable exceptions. Women are more likely than men to view Social Security as a serious source of income in retirement with 83 percent of women and 72 percent of men reporting that they will be counting on it.

When it comes to retirement confidence, men are more likely than women to feel very confident about having saved enough money to live comfortably in retirement and to take care of basicexpenses with 17 percent of men reporting that they will have enough to live comfortably versus 10 percent of women. Thirty percent of men and 21 percent women report that they have enough to take care of basic expenses.

The rest of the survey leads us to conclude that men and women perhaps are not so different after all, at least when it come to retirement.

Women and men are just as likely as men to indicate that they have attempted to calculate how much money they will need to live in retirement. The finding should prompt advisors and producers to actively seek out women to assist their planning needs if they have not already.

Men and women also want to retire at the same age with the median expected age at 65. However, men are also more likely than women to report that they will retire before 60 and after 70.

Both sexes are equally likely to report that their retirement plans have changed in the last 12 months with the majority of both men and women saying that the change translates to retiring later than they originally had hoped.

Interestingly, although women typically live longer than men and therefore incur more medical bills and need more income, both sexes report that they will need to accumulate less than $250,000 for retirement.